Thursday, March 31, 2011

All members of the Aussie delegation have made apparatus finals at the competition- Ashleigh Brennan will contest beam and floor finals; Larrissa Miller will join her in the floor final and line up for the bars final.

Fresh from a first place pommel final qualification in Paris, Prashanth Sellathurai has qualified in first to the pommel final and sixth to rings.

You can see some photos of the team in action at Gymnastics Australia or at the Victorian Women's High Performance Centre page at Facebook.

Here's hoping all our Aussies equal (or better!) their rankings and bring home some hardware.

If you would like to see some videos from the recent Wild Rose Invitational, check out this YouTube channel. Katie Wurth's striking floor routine is of particular note.

Edit Friday: More good news out of Doha as apparatus finals play out - Congratulations Larrissa Miller for snaring a silver in the bars final behind Tan Sixin of China (5.9/13.450)!

And in news just to hand, Prashanth Sellathurai won pommel!

Edit Saturday: It keeps getting better and better - Ashleigh Brennan adds to Australia's tally with a silver on beam (13.800, a few wobbles but stayed on) and a silver on floor (5.3/13.300)!!!

Larrissa Miller unfortunately couldn't quite keep up in the floor final and suffered a fall on her double arabian (12.150)

Thanks to Wen Shuli for finding this photo of the bars medallists:

You can see Larrissa's silver-medal bars routine in the video below (02:53 in). Check the nailed dismount!

Monday, March 28, 2011

Lovely pic from the VWHPC Facebook page of Team Australia at the Wild Rose Invitational.

"Like" the page to see more from the event, as well as photos from our Doha World Cup delegation. (I'd like to amend my post titled "The International" to indicate that Larrissa Miller of Queensland is also competing in Doha.)

A hearty congratulations goes out to Emily Little for winning a silver medal in the beam final! Onya Em!

Saturday, March 26, 2011

Team Australia are certainly clocking up the frequent flyer miles this quarter! Ashleigh Brennan and Prashanth Sellathurai will travel to the Doha World Cup to compete on their pet events, March 30-April 1. Prior to the competition, Prash is spending some time training at the Waveney Gymnastics Club in the UK. This weekend (this one! Right now! That we're in!) sees Britt Greeley, Tierra Exum, Georgia Rose Brown, Emily Little and Katie Wurth to compete at the Wild Rose International in Canada. You can follow live scores here . I am told there is very limited access to the live webstream so apologies if you are encountering problems.

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Sorry for the scare, everyone, I am still here! Battling a nasty cold but still here! I am still without a working laptop and, in response to someone's suggestion, am nowhere near an internet cafe. A solution is only a couple of days away though, so until then I am making do with alternating between my phone and our slow old PC. I'm as frustrated as you all are but appreciate your patience. So here's a quick catch-up. 1. Cottbus Cup: We were represented in Germany by Rotterdam team members Ashleigh Brennan and Larrissa Miller. Ash managed a commendable 7th in the floor final, Larrissa finished 8th in bars qualification to unfortunately miss out on that final. 2. Paris-Bercy World Cup:Lauren Mitchell and Prashanth Sellathurai are currently flying the flag for Australia. Qualification has proved to be a bumpy ride, with errors for Mitchell on bars, beam and on her new floor tumble - whip immediate double Arabian. Her best result was a 4th place qualification for the beam final. Prashanth is having more luck, blitzing pommel qualification with 7.0 difficulty and 9.000 execution according to IG. Wowzers! See a report from IG and scores from the qualification round here. The Gym Examiner has an on-the-scene report and videos from podium training and the qualification here. French Youtubers are dutifully putting videos up here. ETA: Rough outings for both Mitchell and Sellathurai in their finals. Lauren suffered a fall on her 2-foot layout to finish 4th on beam. Prashanth also had a fall from pommel though the crowd got behind him to finish. Both finished in 4th place. 3. Gymnix International: Another mixed bag of results for our budding superstars after their duel with Great Britain. Several of our delegation made finals, but only one held on for some hardware- Nikki Chung showed a masterful beam routine that scored her bronze in the final. Onya Nikki! I certainly hope to see Georgia Wheeler's new double layout bars dismount in action at national events! You can see videos of Team Australia at the event here. Results are on the competition page. 4. Pac-10 Championships: It was an all-Aussie affair today with adopted homes Stanford and OSU competing alongside a handful of other schools in one of the biggest meets on the road to the NCAA gymnastics championships. The PHENOMENAL news out of the event is that Perth's own Olivia Vivian has clawed back her #1 national bars ranking, scoring a 9.9 to tie for first place on the event and, in the process, help Oregon State to the team title. And she scored a second place on beam with a 9.9! A #1 NCAA ranking and Pac-10 title is the first for an Australian gymnast within the NCAA program. I hope to have my videos from the VWHPC open day up within the next fortnight. The event's official photographer has some lovely photos up here. Coming up next in their gym is the Senior Invitational on April 9. Sorry (again) for the delays. Drop me a line at ozgymblog@gmail.com to raise any issues you might have.

Friday, March 4, 2011

Hi everyone. I am STILL limited to my phone! Therefore I am slowly going insane. Feel free to comment on American Cup goings-on at this post. All I have out of podium training so far (see The Gym Examiner and comments in previous thread) is that Lauren was doing Yurchenko fulls, struggled a bit on bars, and is looking to upgrade to a whip-double arabian for floor before the year is out. Good luck Loz! *continues to mash keys* If you're in Prahran tomorrow, make yourself known! Edit: I am here at the HPC, check out ozgymblog at Twitter for updates and pics live from the scene! Vids will follow ... eventually! The Couch Gymnast is also here, happy-snapping away! Edit 2: Apologies for lack of coverage. Long, sleep-inducing days will do that to you! Lauren had a rough competition and managed a commendable 6th overall.

Wednesday, March 2, 2011

Hi all. Apologies for a long absence. My laptop is out of action (again!) so I am currently stuck on my phone! I hope to have it working by the weekend, as I plan to bring you coverage of the American Cup and Aus v GBR events, not to mention observations from the VWHPC Open Day. There will be so much going on, I am dying to bring it to you as comprehensively as possible! Please bear with me! *mashes keys*